


A different kind of undead

by sassylorastyrell



Category: From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, F/M, Family Bonding, if that wasn't clear, underage refers to kate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-08
Updated: 2017-04-29
Packaged: 2018-08-13 20:54:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7985839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sassylorastyrell/pseuds/sassylorastyrell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the world goes to shit the Gecko brothers aren’t fazed. Sure, it may sound a bit cocky to say so, but honestly they’ve been fighting the world side-by-side their entire life, so who really cares if the world adds zombies to the mix? They live like straight-up kings for the first few months and for a while there it seems like they’re the last two standing in the entire world.</p>
<p>Then they meet the Fullers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So I don't really know where the inspiration for this came from other than FDTD starting up again, but once I thought of it, it was nagging at me to continue and next thing I knew I wrote 7,000 words and it was way too long for a one-shot. Thus I present to you my first multi-chapter fic. I know it's a bit of a weird premise, but go with me on this one.

When the world goes to shit the Gecko brothers aren’t fazed. Sure, it may sound a bit cocky to say so, but honestly they’ve been fighting the world side-by-side their entire life, so who really cares if the world adds zombies to the mix?

Richie breaks Seth out of that goddamn prison the second the government is down. They blow the brains out of a few of undead inmates and guards and hit the road.

If anything, this is the kind of world the Gecko boys were made for. Lawless, amoral and violent is the name of the game and the brothers excel at it. They take what they want, and there’s no one left to stop them.

They live like straight-up kings for the first few months and for a while there it seems like they’re the last two standing in the entire world.

Then they meet the Fullers.

They’re spending the night at some abandoned hole called the Dew Drop Inn in Texas when it happens. Richie wonders why they don’t spend the night in some abandoned five-star hotel instead of a half-star shit hole, but Seth finds comfort in the familiar amidst the chaos.

Seth is sprawled across a lumpy mattress, desperately ignoring the heavy humidity raining down on them in the absence of a long-dead air conditioning unit in the window. Richie is reloading their artillery in the corner, as methodical as ever, should they find themselves in a bit of a scrape with a couple of their bumbling, braindead friends.

The scream shatters them out of their routine. Seth jolts upright on the bed and turns to the door. Richie is calmer but there’s a glint in his eye as he grabs a shotgun and jumps to his feet.

“You crazy, Richard?” Seth asks. “If some idiot’s getting eaten out there, it’s their own damn fault. Darwinism and shit. This ain’t the time to play hero, brother.”  
Seth lays a hand on Richie’s arm, but his younger brother shakes him off, a strand of hair falling into his eyes from his meticulously gelled hair. Where Richie finds time to locate hair gel during the apocalypse is anybody’s guess.

“When’s the last time you heard a real-live person scream, Seth?” Richie answers. “Whoever’s out there has made it this far, and that makes them a survivor, like us. That’s somebody worth saving.”

Richie yanks open the door and turns toward the ongoing screams. He pauses and turns back toward Seth for just a moment.

“And don’t call me crazy,” he says, before running off.

“Jesus Christ, Richard,” Seth mutters under his breath as he cocks a pistol of his own and follows his impulsive baby brother.

They find the source of the sound in a nearby gas station parking lot. A girl stands amidst a full-on horde, her back against an RV with two frantic-looking men standing on top of it.

Seth wonders for a moment how the hell Little Miss Sunshine hasn’t become zombie chow since they first heard her scream before he sees a glint in the darkness and an arrow flies through the head of the nearest member of the undead.

“That explains the lack of gunshots, I suppose,” Richie grumbles before lifting his rifle and firing off a few clean headshots at the horde.

Who has time for a motherfucking crossbow nowadays? Seth thinks before he starts firing as well.

The girl quickly swivels to face them, shock clear on her face before she remembers her surroundings and gets back to killing.

Within a few minutes they’ve taken down the horde between the three of them and the girl wipes a bloodied hand across her sweaty forehead as Seth and Richie gingerly pick their way through the dozen or so corpses on the asphalt.

“Thank you,” she says in a voice far too high and pure for a girl as bloodied and vicious as she seems to be.

“Kate!” a voice shouts down from the top of the RV.

An Asian man, more a boy, the brothers realize as he draws closer, runs to hug the girl.

The second man follows him down and draws both children into his arms. He’s dressed entirely inappropriate for the hot Texas weather in a khaki windbreaker and a wide-brimmed hat.

Though it’s hardly like Seth and Richie are ones to talk in their matching black suits. But at least they have style.

The old man breaks from the family hug and extends his hand to Seth.

“Thank you for saving my daughter,” he says, kindness shining in his blue eyes.

“Well somebody had to,” Richie grumbles behind him.

Seth winces at his brother’s bluntness, but he can’t exactly disagree. The old man doesn’t even look like he’s armed and all the Asian boy has is a pair of swords on his back like he’s Michonne from the Walking Dead.

No wonder the girl was screaming for help, her family was clearly not prepared to jump in. Really, the wonder was that they were still alive at all.

The old man looks down in shame, but the boy jumps in defensively.

“I would have helped out, but my katanas only work in short range,” he bites out, the girl laying a hand on his shoulder and softly whispering “Scott.”

“Yeah, cool story, Bruce Lee,” Richie counters. “Ever heard of guns? They work from all distances.”

Scott takes a step toward them, but again the girl, Kate, holds him back.

The old man sighs wearily.

“We don’t use guns,” he explains and the brothers look at him like he’s grown a second head.

“How the fuck are you still alive?” Seth asks, astounded.

“We try to avoid them when we can,” he answers. “We have everything we need in the RV and we only stop for gas and food. As long as we keep moving at a good clip, then they can’t overwhelm us and we can handle the occasional straggler with what weapons we have.”

“That’s some bullshit right there,” Seth answers. “That hunk of junk is going to break down someday, or you’re going to attract a horde during one of your little pit stops again and my brother and I won’t be there to save you next time.”

The old man bites his lip, caught between indignant and chastised. He straightens his spine and lays an arm around each of his children’s shoulders.

“Well, like I said, thank you for your help gentlemen. Now we better be getting back on the road,” he says, ushering the kids back toward the door to the RV.

“Good riddance,” Seth scoffs and turns back toward the inn, but it appears Richie had other plans.

“Wait,” his dumbshit brother calls out. “I don’t know about you, but I see an opportunity here.”

Seth curses under his breath before turning back around, as the little family turned back toward them.

“Pretty sure it’s just you, genius,” Seth says.

“What do you mean an opportunity?” Kate asks, taking a step away from her father’s protective grasp.

A smile flickers for a moment on Richie’s face and he takes a step toward the girl.

“You and your family need protection, me and my brother need a home,” he explains.

Seth rolls his eyes. Just the other day Richie had been praising life on the road, and now he was pulling this Dorothy Gale no-place-like-home bullshit?

“You let us crash in your RV and maybe you can slow down and smell the roses once in a while without looking over your shoulder every second,” Richie continues. “Besides, I don’t know about you, but I’m a little bit tired of the same old company day-after-day. It seems to me those of us left alive should stick together, don’t you think?”  
“Gee, so sorry I’m not the fascinating conversationalist you’re looking for, Richard,” Seth says. “But I’m not exactly ready to jump into bed with a bunch of pacifists in the middle of the zombie apocalypse.”

“I think you should listen to your brother, young man,” Kate’s father says, stepping forward behind his daughter. “It’s not that we aren’t grateful for your help and all, but God’s brought us this far on our own, maybe it’s best we don’t rock the boat.”

Seth bites back a groan, because of course they were religious nuts, of course they were. But Richie refuses to tear his eyes away from the girl, who smiles at him like a goddamn angel and turns back to her father.

“Or maybe God brought them to us, Daddy,” she says, turning to her father. “They saved my life. We’ve been alone for so long, maybe it’s time we found so company.”

The father nods and Seth knows they’re screwed.

He groans and holds the cool handle of his pistol to his forehead.

“Well ramblers,” he sighs. “Let’s get ramblin’.”


	2. Sundresses and kisses

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I just wanted to say a big thank you to all of you who commented (and kudos of course, but those comments really got me inspired and wanting to update). This chapter was originally part of a much longer chapter, but the second half was uber-depressing, so I decided to give y'all a happy update before shit hits the fan. 
> 
> Also for anyone that wants to you can check out my tumblr, where I take prompts (though I've got quite the backlog right now) and fangirl pretty hard. It's the same url: sassylorastyrell
> 
> Enjoy!

The Fullers are just the opposite of the Geckos. They’re pure, too pure for a world like this. Particularly Kate.

Seth’s put a bullet in more heads then he could’ve ever dreamed of these past few months, but nothing makes him feel quite as sinful as that feeling he gets deep inside when Kate smiles at him.

But Seth’s not a fucking pervert, even when a teenage girl may be the last woman left alive.

Richie however, does not have Seth’s morals.

He sees the way Richie looks at Kate. And he gets it, he does. They haven’t seen a woman who wasn’t missing half her skin since Christmas, and Kate’s a pretty girl with that porcelain face and big green eyes. But she’s too young and too good for the likes of them.

Seth tries to keep them separated as much as he can, though it’s hard in the tight quarters the RV provides.

Seth puts himself in charge of Kate during runs, leaving Richie with Jacob and Scott. He knows he’s doing the right thing, even though it’s torture. Because Kate, as pure a soul as she is, she also wields that crossbow like a goddamn goddess and she has this one smirk that she gets just when Seth teaches her to pick a lock or load a gun. It’s like she knows she’s doing something her daddy wouldn’t approve of and she likes it and it drives Seth wild.

Still, Seth thinks he’s done a fairly good job at keeping them apart until about four months after they met the Fullers when they’re stopped at a campground for the night.

They’ve been stopping more often now that Seth and Richie and their superb aim joined the team and their little group even feels comfortable enough to start a fire.

Scott made them grab s’more making materials at the nearest supermarket for the occasion, and even though the marshmallows are a bit stale now, it gives Seth an absurd feeling of normalcy that warms his stomach.

That is until he realizes Richie and Kate are gone from the fire. Jacob says Kate went to bed already and Scott says Richie went for firewood, but Seth’s too keen to trust simple lies like that.

He wander just outside the campsite, a gun at his side and a rifle reluctantly left with Jacob just in case the fire draws some unexpected visitors.

It’s not 50 yards from the site that he hears Kate’s breathy whispers. And when Seth draws near enough to finally make them out in the dim light it’s enough to stop him dead in his tracks.

Kate’s back is up against a tree and Richie leans over her, his broad shoulders enough to shield her almost completely from vision, except that his head is bent to kiss along her neck, revealing her pale face.

Though it’s not pale now. No, now she’s flushed red all the way down to her collarbone which Richie leans down to nip at lightly with low moans of “Katie” ringing out in between kisses as his hand lingers at the base of her breast.

Kate’s head is thrown back and her eyes are screwed shut, though her mouth is slightly agape.

Seth nearly chokes on his own breath and his stomach roils with an unhealthy mix of jealousy and lust.

He should burst in on them right then, he thinks. Say something snarky and damning like “preacher’s daughter strikes again.”

But he finds he can’t. Because he realizes seeing the flash of his brother’s too-white teeth in the darkness in a smile broader than he’s seen in months and the ecstasy in Kate’s eyes as she pulls him up for a deep kiss that Richie and Kate have found happiness in this new miserable reality of theirs and who is he to deny them that.

Seth never mentions what he saw to his brother or Kate, and he even ignores their puppy dog eyes and oh-so-sneaky smiles through the weeks.

They think they’re so smart with their occasionally brushing hands, and their “scouting runs,” but Seth thinks even Jacob is catching on to the game now and Scott most definitely knows. But magically, however wrong it is, they all seem to agree to ignore it. This world’s too harsh to judge.

But then comes the day when they hit a Target somewhere around Santa Fe.

Seth still partners with Kate on supply runs like these, and he won’t admit it, but he specifically chose Target because he knows it’s her favorite store.

She runs a hand over a sundress gathering dust on the rack in the women’s section, the other hand laying firmly across her every-handy crossbow.

“You want it?” Seth asks, catching her eye. “You can take it, you know. I don’t think security’s gonna catch you.”  
Kate laughs breathily and pinches the purple skirt between her fingertips.

“Wouldn’t be very practical, would it?” she says, smiling mirthlessly. “Just exposes more flesh to bite into.”

Seth tilts his head at her, before stepping past her, stretching his arm in front of her chest to grab the dress off the rack.

“Gotta get our kicks where we can, princess,” he says, nodding his head toward the dressing room.

“Seriously?” Kate asks.

Seth smirks and wanders toward the ladies’ dressing room.

“Bet you Richie would love it,” he says.

He knows it’s risky mentioning her bizarre relationship with his brother, but it seems to work, because next thing he knows she’s marching past him to the dressing room dress in hand and a small smile at play on her lips.

She looks stunning in it. Like she’s going to a country dance or some shit. For a moment Seth can even pretend she’s just a normal girl living a normal life.

He claps and smiles from the lonesome chair outside the changing stall.

“Now you look like a real princess, sweetheart,” he tells her.

Kate rolls her eyes but she can’t seem to hide her all-too genuine smile.

“It’s just a sundress, Seth,” she says. “Not anything fancy. I used to wear them all the time.”  
Her smile fades a bit as she mentions her old life.

For all the months the Fullers and Geckos had been travelling together, the past was not a subject they ever breached.

Seth thinks Jacob must know when he learned their names that they were _those_ Gecko brothers. After all, he didn’t like to brag, but they’d certainly earned a reputation for themselves. But he never mentioned it, after all why scare his kids over something as mundane as bank robbing when the undead roamed the earth?

For that matter, the Geckos never talked about the Fullers’ old lives. Sure, they knew Jacob was a pastor, hard to miss with the family prayers he led each night with Scott and Kate, but they never asked about where Mommy Fuller was or how they’d made it so far on optimism and outdated weaponry.

Seth smiles reassuringly, dismissing Kate’s concern and stands, sauntering over to her.

“Did you now?” he asks. “Bet you had all those good Christian boys all hot and bothered at the church dances. Huh, Katie-cakes?”

He grabs her hands and sways a bit to nonexistent music.

Kate laughs.

“I was a good girl, Seth,” she says, that secret smirk drawing up her lips. “Good girls don’t do that sort of thing.”

Seth knows he’s playing with fire as he takes a step closer and lays one hand at her waist as they continue to dance.

“ _Was_ a good girl?” he asks, quirking an eyebrow as Kate lays a hand on his shoulder. “What does bad Kate do?”

Her breath catches a bit and those damn doe eyes flicker down to his lips for just a moment and Seth realizes too late that they’ve stopped swaying all together.

A moment seems to go on for eternity before a gunshot echoes through the store and just like that the moment’s broken. Kate grabs her crossbow and Seth cocks his gun as they run toward the food aisles where Richie and Kate’s family are.


	3. Preacher Man

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it's about to get dark y'all. This is a shorter chapter, because I kind of wanted to isolate it from the lighter stuff that follows. I'll be updating soon since I've already finished the next chapter (it just needs some polishing). But here's a hint: A familiar character joins the group soon.

Sometime while Kate and Seth were playing dress-up it seems they missed the traveling group of zombies that came through the old automatic doors.

They’re emaciated looking things, but that hunger only seems to drive them farther toward the group cornered in the cracker aisle.

Richie takes down one slathering, former cashier as Seth and Kate round the corner. Scott has his katana out and swings it across a desperate undead housewife, cutting her head straight from her body before driving the sword through her eye as her skull lands on the floor.

Jacob shoots the pistol Richie and Seth insisted he learn how to use at a couple of encroaching walkers, but his aim is not up to snuff and he misses.

Kate lifts her crossbow just as Seth lifts his pistol and shoots an arrow straight through the cranium of the zombie nearest her father.

Seth takes aim at the second one, but another creepy-crawling monster inches toward Kate on a single foot, the rotting flesh of what was presumably his left leg dragging along beside him.

Seth shoots over Kate’s shoulder and hits the thing square between his eyes. Kate turns toward him at the sound and gives him a nod of thanks. Seth only just returns the gesture when they hear a blood-curdling scream.

They turn back around and Jacob is sinking to the ground, the second zombie with his teeth buried in the pastor’s shoulder.

Richie quickly fires off a shot into his head, sending the fiend reeling back, but the damage is done.

Seth takes quick stock to make sure they’ve got them all before he follows Kate to jog to Jacob’s side.

The blood spouts from his arm as Kate lays a desperate hand on Jacob’s shoulder. Scott falls to his knees on his father’s other side, quickly removing his sweatshirt to staunch the bleeding, as if it will truly do anything.

Jacob, of all things, chuckles breathlessly before coughing heavily.

“I guess the Lord wants to take me home now, huh?” he sighs, breathing heavily.

“Daddy, don’t you say that,” Kate insists running a fluttering hand through his hair and looking over his body frantically as if about to perform some sort of triage. “We can amputate or—or…”

“Katie,” her dad raises a calming hand to lay against his daughter’s cheek. “There’s nothing to amputate, he bit my shoulder.”

“You can’t give up, Dad,” Scott insists, the sort of resentful grit specific to teenage boys mingling with the dry throatiness of repressed tears. “We can’t lose you, not like we lost mom.”  
Seth and Richie, for their part, can’t meet the Fullers’ eyes. They know Jacob’s right. He was a goner the minute that thing’s chompers hit his flesh. Didn’t make it easy, though.

“You two have each other,” Jacob raised his bloody hands to grasp one of each of his children’s palms. “I need you two to be a family after I’m gone. Take care of each other.”

“And you two,” he looks up at the Gecko brothers all of a sudden, his blue eyes sharp and lucid despite the blood loss. “You two take care of them for me. I know you may have been selfish men in the past, but none of us are what we once were.”

Seth and Richie nod hesitantly, but Jacob suddenly leans over coughing ferociously and blood speckles the linoleum floor.

“Now, I’m going to have to test your all’s faith,” he says, leaning his head back against the shelves of packaged goods.

He wheezes as he releases Kate’s hand to grab the gun at his side and raises it up as tribute.

“No,” Kate shakes her head ferociously. “No, Daddy. I can’t.”

“You don’t want to see me turn into one of those things,” Jacob sighs, his head nodding off side to side lazily from the blood loss. “And I don’t want to be one.”

He coughs again and Scott wipes away tears furiously.

“But I’m not asking you to do it, sweetheart,” he says, before looking up at Seth and Richie once more. “I’m asking them to.”  
Seth swallows thickly and turns to look at Richard who seems to be avoiding eye contact with any one of the people already grieving in the aisle.

Seth nods quickly and sharply at Jacob, unable to speak.

Jacob returns the nod gratefully before turning back to his children.

“I love you both so much,” he says, looking between Kate and Scott. “I’ve protected you for as long as I could and I’m so grateful for the time I’ve had with you both. Now though, I get to go be with your mama.”

Kate lets out a gasping sob and Scott throws a hand around her shoulder that turns into them collapsing in on their dying father in a bloody, desperate family hug.

“Go now,” Jacob says as they release one another, pushing his children away gently. “There’s no reason you have to see this.”

Kate grabs onto his arm, determined to stay, but Scott draws her away. They brush past Seth and Richie and neither Gecko can bare to look at them.

Once they’re sure that the kids are a safe distance away however, they finally turn to face Jacob.

Richard leans down and picks up the gun at Jacob’s side. Jacob’s kind, blue eyes follow the movement, though he’s too weak to do anything else.

As Richie straightens himself, Seth can swear he glimpses tears in the corner of Richie’s eye, beneath his glasses. If Seth’s own vision is swimming a bit, he won’t admit it.  
“I know you two care about them,” Jacob says, his breath nothing but a weak whisper. “Kate especially.”

Richie ducks his head and Seth averts his eyes.

“Don’t deny it,” Jacob chuckles dryly. “It’s bad luck to lie to a dying man, you know. I don’t care if you were criminals, you’ve done right by us. Just make sure you do right by her.”

With that he sighs and with his final strength, Jacob pulls himself up so he’s sitting straight and nods proudly.

Seth opens his mouth to say something, but the gunshot cuts him off.

He looks at his brother in shock, the smoke still unfurling from the barrel of the gun in Richie’s hand.  
Richie lowers it and turns abruptly.

“Let’s go,” he says.

Kate and Scott are a mess when they find them back near the checkout, the only thing keeping them upright being one another.

Kate flies into Richie’s arms the second she sees him and Seth supposes there’s no use hiding the preacher’s daughter’s sins now that the preacher himself is gone.

“We-we have to bury him,” she mumbles into Richie’s rumpled shirt.

“We will,” Richie says, glancing back at Seth. “Seth and I will take care of it, you don’t have to worry about it.”  
Seth nods and meets eyes with Scott who’s trying desperately to look more like a man than the boy he is.

“We should get you both back to the RV,” Seth says, his throat sore from unshed tears.

“In a minute,” Kate says pushing past Richie to the other side from the store.

“Where are you going?” Richie asks.

But Seth knows.

“I’m going to change,” she says forlornly. “I don’t think I like this dress anymore.”


	4. A New Normal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So you may have noticed this is my first update since October ... whoops? Honestly, my life got a bit crazy with senior year and all, but now that I'm on the short road to graduation, I finally had time to edit and finish up this chapter. (Also, MeowMaya's review reminded me just how long it's been. The power of reviews y'all.) So yeah, here it is, I promised the intro of a familiar face and while it may not be a face we necessarily all like, I think it turns out okay. I can promise the next chapter (and really, the end of this chapter) includes a much more likable character from the show-verse. Can you guess who it is?

In the months after Jacob dies, the four of them settle into a sort of grim routine. There’s something more vicious in the way the Fuller siblings kill the undead.

As if they’re free from their father’s high expectations of them.

Kate and Richie become more relaxed around each other, their little flirtations and innocent brushing of the hands turning into something more. Nothing scandalous, but now when their hands brush they’ll often join them wholly together, their fingers entwining together.  
Richie will often sling his arm around Kate’s shoulder, pressing a kiss to her forehead as she drifts off to sleep in the breakfast nook of the RV.

Scott doesn’t talk as much as he used to. There’s a bitterness that wasn’t there before, something more than the average teenage rebellion.

And as for Seth, well he tries to just keep things moving as he’s always done, pretending everything’s alright. Or at least as alright as things can be during a zombie invasion.

It’s about two months later that they stop at some kitschy gift shop back in Texas. They’d been moving back south ever since Jacob’s death without any real reason.

The gift shop had a gas station outside of it and what was once a diner on the side. The inside is dilapidated in an extensive sort of way that makes them think the breakdown began before the dead rose.

The quartet wanders in, weapons at the ready, but not exceedingly concerned. After all, they’re in the middle of nowhere, it’s the cities you really had to worry about. Where plenty of people died, plenty of people became undead.

Scott heads straight for the diner’s deep freezer to see if there’s anything worth taking and Richie follows.

Seth begins to sweep the store, used to the precaution, as Kate wanders the aisles. Her fingers drift over snow globes and racist peace pipes. Her hands stop at a frontier-dressed doll, bonnet and all and lifts it up to show Seth in amusement.

Seth rolls his eye but smirks.

“Aren’t you a little old to be playing with dolls, Katie-cakes?” he says in jest, though he winces when he sees the pain in her eyes.

He shouldn’t call her Katie-cakes. Her father called her Katie-cakes.

“Katie-cakes, huh?”

The two of them turn, weapons raised and ready at the voice. A blonde, leather-clad sleazeball stands in the aisle, his hands fly up next to his head in alarm at the sight of their gun and crossbow.

“You’re alive!” Kate says in shock.

“Sure am, sweetheart,” the stranger says, grinning at Kate in a way that really makes Seth want to punch him in the face already.

“Richie, Scott!” Seth calls out, not lowering his gun one inch, breathing human or not.

The two men jog out of the adjoining diner soon enough, looking at the man with just as much shock as Seth and Kate.

“Jesus, what is he wearing?” Scott asks and it’s then Seth notices the—apparatus on the man’s crotch.

Seth groans in disgust.

“What the hell, man?” he says, gesturing with the hand not holding a live weapon to the stranger’s phallus-shaped gun.

“Oh this?” he asks, gesturing proudly. “This is why they call me Sex Machine.”  
Richie snorts and Seth smirks to see the pride slip from “Sex Machine’s” face.

“I guarantee nobody calls you that,” Richie says.

“Says you,” Sex Machine retorts immaturely.

“What are you doing here?” Kate asks, crossbow still raised Seth notices with satisfaction. “We didn’t see any cars parked outside when we pulled up.”  
“My hog’s parked out back,” the stranger answers and Seth and Richie roll their eyes simultaneously.

“But I’ve actually been here awhile,” Sex Machine continues. “Good food. Isolated area. Fun knick-knacks.”  
He pulls out a snow globe from his tight leather pants and shakes it, smirking at Kate.

“Well we should probably leave you to your nirvana then,” Seth snaps back, lowering his gun only to shove past the freak.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Sex Machine says, moving around Seth to block his path once more. “No need to go so soon, brother. Maybe we can work something out. I’ve been looking for a posse and you all seem like you’ve really got this whole apocalypse thing down.”

Seth eyes him up and down and decides that yes, the man is indeed insane.

“No thanks,” he answers and Richie snorts once more as he follows Seth to the front of the gift shop, Scott heaving his sword up his shoulder and following them.

Kate moves to go as well, but Sex Machine catches her wrist.

The three men turn around abruptly, the Geckos raising their guns protectively and Scott’s hand flying to the pommel of his sword.

Sex Machine releases his grip, but his eyes remain pleading.

“Just wait a minute,” he says. “Look the truth is, I’ve been hiding out in this hole for months and I need out. I don’t think I can make it on my own, but I can pay my way if you let me join up with you all. I’ll be useful I promise.”  
He directs the grand majority of this little speech to Kate, whose face slowly turns to pity.

She turns to face them.

“No,” Seth answers finally. “No way.”

But an hour later, they’ve salvaged all the remaining frozen goods they can fit in the RV and have hitched Sex Machine’s “hog” to the back of the rambler.

“You’ve got too big of a heart, princess,” Seth says in the doorway to Kate, watching as Sex Machine demonstrates how his obscene little weapon works to Scott.

“What was it Richie said when we all first met?” she asks, turning to the brothers. “Those of us left alive should stick together?”  
“I would never have said it if I knew you would use it against me,” Richie grumbles kicking up his feet on the table as they move into the RV’s interior.

“Besides,” he says softer. “I said that about a pretty girl. Not some old pervert.”

Seth pretends he hasn’t heard and he ignores the flame of jealousy in his gut as Kate blushes and smiles, moving to sit beside Richie.

Instead, Seth moves to the front and honks the horn to get Scott and—God help them—Sex Machine inside.

For better or for worse (Seth is partial to worse), Sex Machine definitely changes the dynamic of their little crew.

He knows a lot about mythology and he has a big mouth that loves to share it. This leads to several theories of his about why the dead rose and all of them seem to be a variance of doom’s day and hellish retribution.

But as annoying as his mythos talk is, Seth vastly prefers it to his creepy, silent stares at Kate.

Having Sex Machine around reminds Seth just how young Kate is. And he’s reminded that as much as he may want to look at Kate in that lustful way, he always managed to refrain himself in a way Sex Machine doesn’t bother with.

Because Seth may be a bastard, but he’s not a fucking bastard.

Richie seems to sense Sex Machine’s encroaching lust as well, because now his occasional displays of affection have become omnipresent.

It’s rare now to see Kate without Richie’s arm around her as long as they’re in the RV.

Additionally, they begin to sleep with each other.

Not in a creepy way, because for God’s sake, they all share a living space and Kate’s not the sort of girl to lose her virginity with her brother lying ten feet away. But they share a bunk, with Richie’s arms wrapped about her each night.

Seth and Scott exchange sleeping in the arm chairs when one of them isn’t driving and Sex Machine gets the floor. Not as if he’s going to complain, when he’s really only riding with them out of the goodness of Kate’s heart.

They fall into a sort of status quo over the next two months. The gaping hole Jacob left is still there, but for brief moments they can forget about it.

Kate makes them stop at the Alamo in San Antonio and though they have to kill close to two dozen walkers and they can only stay for five minutes flat without drawing attention to themselves, Kate and Scott still manage to snap a couple photos of their ragtag little group out front using one of the dinky disposable cameras they find in the gift shop.

“No lines!” Kate proclaims. “There were so many lines when Mama and Daddy brought us years back.”  
Seth knows they’ll never be able to develop the photos and it was all sorts of hell just to get there, but it’s worth it to see Kate and Scott smile again and hear Kate reminisce about her parents without sadness in her eyes.

Plus, it was hilarious to see Richie grumpily forced to pose in front of a national landmark.

Sex Machine turns out to be a halfway decent cook, perhaps from all those long months alone with nothing to do but practice, and the cuisine on their little RV Enterprise improves dramatically.

Richie also gets the bright idea when they’re on a supply run at a mall to get some “leisure” items in addition to their necessities. For a few minutes, Seth is panicked when he and Kate return to the rendezvous point with fresh clothes and Scott and Sex Machine return from their food run without Richard.

Logically, Seth knows that Richie can take care of himself, but he can hardly breathe thinking that _maybe he can’t_. He’s torn between shooting Scott and Sex Machine for letting him wander off and tearing the entire goddamn mall apart himself when Richie shows up with an armful of shopping bags and a shit-eating grin.

“Goddamn it, Richard,” Seth says, though the bite’s taken out by the accompanying bear hug.

He hates to admit it after all the worry Richie put them through, but the leisure items Richie stole make life on the RV much more entertaining. They play board games like some dumbass family game night and Scott has a whole host of new comics to read (even if he’s secretly read them all before).

Somehow the idiot even found one of those portable DVD players to watch some of their old favorites on.

Kate and Scott had never seen _Goodfellas_ and Seth and Richie are happy to remedy that fact.

Sex Machine is banned after the first five minutes when he can’t refrain from useless commentary.

The first hint of trouble this time around is not blood-curdling screams or moaning, groaning undead. This time it’s a simple comment.

They’ve stopped for the night in an overlook in some national park or another. Not a person, living or undead, is around for miles.

Richie sits behind Kate, the girl leaning back against his chest with the DVD player on her lap. He’s explaining why the original _Ocean’s 11_ is far superior to the remake, due to the classic Rat Pack cast. (Seth silently disagrees, he loves Sinatra, but for some reason he always felt a kinship with Clooney.)

Scott sits at the back table rereading an X-Men comic and somehow Seth is caught talking to Sex Machine.

It starts innocently enough.

Sex Machine, leaning against the door, tilts his chin toward Kate and Richie.

“So how long has that been going on?” he asks.

Seth laughs as he cleans out the many guns he and Richie have accrued over time.

“For her, about five months,” he says. “For him, since the moment they met.”  
“Dumbass,” Seth mutters under his breath, referring to his oh-so-smart little brother.

“And what about you and her?” Sex Machine asks and that pulls Seth up short.

Seth pauses cleaning out the barrel of a rifle and looks up at Sex Machine dangerously.

“Nothing is going on between me and Kate,” he answers slowly, menacingly.

Sex Machine smirks in that way that always makes Seth crack his knuckles.

“Oh come on,” he says, elbowing Seth like they’re buddies. They’re not.

“You’re telling me you partner up with her on all those supply runs for her superior aim?” he asks.

Seth’s blood begins to boil but he forces himself to remain calm.

It’s a nice night. He would hate to ruin it by murdering one of the last five people alive.

“Listen up, because I won’t tell you again,” Seth says, standing and taking a step toward Sex Machine until they’re nose to nose. “There’s nothing going on between me and Kate.”  
“Okay,” Sex Machine chuckles, raising his arms in surrender. “Lie if you want, I was just wondering when I get a turn.”

Seth’s vision is overtaken by blind white fury.

“When you get a what?” he says, buzzing in his ears and anger in his voice.

“Come on, man,” Sex Machine says, glancing at Kate lasciviously. “She may be the last woman alive on Earth. Shouldn’t we all be doing a little repopulating, if you know what I mean?”

The smug, ugly bastard doesn’t even have time to see the fist come flying before it lands against his nose in a crunch of bone and burst of blood.

Kate and Richie jump to their feet, the DVD player falling to the floor as Scott shuffles out of the breakfast nook.

“What the hell?” Scott asks.

“Sex Machine’s leaving,” Seth answers having to bite the inside of his cheek to keep his anger in check.

“What for?” Scott asks at the same time Kate says: “We can’t just leave him in the middle of nowhere!”

Richie though, Richie looks into Seth’s eyes and understands just like he always does.

His baby brother tugs down his shirt and makes his way over to Sex Machine. He grabs the back of his idiotic leather jacket and with his other hand opens the door.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Sex Machine asks, beginning to struggle.   
Seth grabs his other side and between the two of them, the Gecko brothers throw him straight out the door.

Over the sound of Scott and Kate’s protestations and Sex Machine banging at the door, Seth makes his way to the driver’s seat and turn the key in the ignition.

The banging stops as Seth guns the RV to its top, admittedly still low, speed.

Kate and Scott eventually abandon their moral protestations and fall back into silence. As the overlook fades away, followed by the park itself, Seth looks into the rearview mirror and meets Richie’s eyes.

An understanding passes between blue and brown.

Somewhere along the way Kate, and even Scott, became part of their pack, and they weren’t about to let anyone living or dead threaten that pack.

Seth continues driving well after the sun was down and inky darkness consumed the unending Texas sky. It wasn’t until nearly seven the next morning that they realized they were at the Mexican border.

The RV rolls to a stop just before the American side. It’s an eerie site. Every lane is lined with cars, abandoned in the long line toward freedom. Perhaps they though that Mexico would be a reprieve from whatever little apocalypse they were facing in the good old U.S.A., but the truth was the whole world went to shit, regardless of arbitrary borders.

They stop just behind an abandoned minivan and Seth and Richie lead the way out of the rambler, guns at the ready. This many empty cars meant a lot of missing people, alive or dead.

Still, the air remains still and repressively silent as they make their way to the border station.

“This is too creepy,” Scott comments.

“It’s going to be fine, Scott,” Kate turns to him, reassuringly, the crossbow in her hand at odds with her words.

Richie silently reaches for Kate’s hand not on the crossbow’s trigger.

“I agree with Scott,” Richie says surprisingly. “We should head back to the RV and drive around. It’s not as if we’re going to get stopped by border control.”

Seth sighs.

“Something happened here,” he says, turning to confront his odd little family. “We’ve got a hundred plus cars here and not a damn zombie in sight, which means one of two things: Either the horde’s moved on or somebody else took care of them, and if we’re dealing with the latter, then that’s someone I want to meet. Don’t you?”  
As he finishes his little speech, he sees Kate’s eyes widen and Richie takes a step toward him, Scott’s hand flies to the hilt of his katana. Seth has spent enough time in this hell scape to know what that means and he silently curses himself for turning his back on the horizon, but as he moves to turn around he feels the all too familiar, yet long lost sensation of a cold, metal barrel against his temple.

“Glad you’re a fan of my work,” the stranger with the gun to his head says from behind Seth’s back. “Unfortunately, I’m not such a fan of yours, Los Hermanos Geckos.”


End file.
